The "Thing" I Didn't Want to Write About (My Mom and Cancer)

My dad thought it would be a good idea for me to put down on paper what happened today, along with my thoughts and feelings. So here goes...

Today I lost one of my best friends, and one of my biggest supporters. Someone who has been with me through my ups and downs.

My mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer one month and one day ago. She had been complaining about some mild back pain for a few days and we kept telling her that she needed to go in to see the doctor, just like she would normally tell us to do. But she didn't want to take her own advice until one night the pain got so bad that she couldn't sleep through it anymore. She and her nurse sister were pretty sure it was a gall bladder problem, and she just didn't want to have to deal with that over the holiday season. My parents went to the hospital and the doctors did some scans and ran some tests and came back with the worst kind of news anyone wants to hear:

 "I'm sorry but you have cancer, and there isn't anything we can do about it."

 You never think that cancer is going to happen, or that it is a possibility until it is right there in front of you.  Needless to say, we were all shocked and heartbroken. I went to visit her at the hospital and found out that I had been preceded by several other family members, and my parents good friends the Wilkensons. I was happy to stay for a few minutes, but I get claustrophobic and that hospital room wasn't very big so I was glad that Aaron leaving gave me an excuse to not stay very long. Rachel dropped me off, and I was going to get a ride back with him.

Well, she came home and we had a great Christmas season. Everyone was able to make it up this year, it had been several years since that had happened. I know it made Mom's Christmas that much more special.  And it was certainly nice to see everyone and get to see nieces and nephews that I haven't seen in a while.  My mom spent a lot of time sitting over the holiday season, and I want to say that I noticed that she was really starting to have trouble getting through the pain really only about three weeks ago. We just plowed through Christmas and New Years like our family always had (mostly). But like I said, about three weeks ago, the pain started to get to be more than she could take on normal meds, and so they started to up her dosage, and switch her to stronger narcotics. Now, the good part about the narcotics is that they do take the pain away. The bad part of narcotics is that they also start to make a person groggy. So as the next few weeks progressed, she would be fine for a few days, and then the pain would get to be bad, so the doctors would up the dosage. That would wipe her out for the next day, and then she'd be up and awake and alert for a few days until her body got used to the new dosage and the pain would start getting through again. So they would up the dosage and the whole cycle would start over again. Except that as the meds wiped her out it took longer and longer to recover, and she got worse and worse. It didn't help that she wasn't eating or drinking very much either.

Anyway, she started to slip away much more quickly this last week, and I think those of us who were here to see, got a sense that she didn't have much longer to stay with us.

On Sunday, we were at my parent's house as is customary for us. I went in to talk to her for a little while, and had a few nice moments of lucidity with her. Rachel and I talked about our kids, about the nice dinner we had had the night before, and about life and how much we loved her. She responded a few times at appropriate places, asking about the kids, and squeezed my hand to let me know she was there and that she loved me. Then she told us that she needed to say goodnight, because she was tired and to please let Dad or Molly know so they could come up and help. That was my last real conversation with her. I think it was appropriate, talking about the things that she would have been interested in on any normal day. But last night I got it into my head that I needed to go into work early so I could come home early and see her without everyone else hovering and waiting for their turn. I got up at 5:30, with is about an hour and a half earlier than I have been doing for the past couple of months and got to work so that I could get off at 2:30pm.  I tried to stay busy at work but I was pretty distracted, and when time came to leave, I am pretty sure that I left several things in different states of completion. I will get to them later. I got to my parents house at 3:45pm, and went into the kitchen to see how it was going. Molly told me it was not good. I asked if she had been awake at all today, and Molly said barely any, just enough for the lawyer and the witnesses to be convinced that she could sign the updated will that they had worked on the week or so before. I asked if it was still a medication issue, or if it was worse than that, and I think she told me at that point she hadn't been able to take any pain pills that day, but was still not alert. I walked upstairs and saw my dad, kneeling by the bedside with my mothers hand in his, telling her that he loved her. I hesitated a moment before going any further, but my dad saw me and got up. He had me sit down with Mom and asked me, if I could get her attention, to offer her a blessing. I took her hand and squeezed, but I didn't get any squeeze back. I looked into her eyes and told her that I loved her and that I was going to miss her. I sat with her silently for a few minutes, and then she looked right at me. I asked her if she wanted a blessing and I got what I will say is a yes and said that I would call Dad up. But as he was listening on the baby monitor, he was already rushing up. My mom then gave us another precious moment of lucidity and said "I love you." The speech wasn't very clear, and she had trouble getting it all out, but I heard it and that is how I want to remember it, that my moms last audible words to me and to my dad were "I love you." We gave Mom a blessing and my dad said that it was ok for her to go, that she didn't need to feel like she needed to stay, and that our Heavenly Father was waiting for her to come home. He ended the blessing, and I looked down at her. Her lips looked so dry, I wanted to do something to help, so I went down to get some ice chips. My dad gave her one, and she took it, but then immediately scrunched up her face in what may have been a mixture of discomfort and strong dislike, with maybe a dash of frustration thrown in (because after all, she wasn't really thirsty), and tried to spit the ice chip out. She put her hand up over her face and eyes and then she put her hand down, her body relaxed and we could tell she was going. We called for Molly, who had been all sorts of fantastic and patient and supportive and helpful. Molly came up and then my mom left. Quite literally 5 minutes after she received that blessing, and less than a half an hour after I got there. I am so glad that I listened to the promptings I received, that allowed me to be there for her final moments and to be there with my dad and Molly as she returned to be with our Father in Heaven.

I love my mom. I will miss her fiercely for the rest of my life, and look forward to the day, after I have had a good long life of my own, that I can run to her embrace, see her smiling face and tell her that I love her once again. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that has offered us a way to be a family forever. I know that this is NOT the end, that I will see her again and that we will be happy.

Mom, I love you so much, words cannot say. You have been my friend, my confidant, my cheerleader, my example. You picked me up when I was down, hugged me when I was happy and sad, took my own wife and kids under your wing. You made me feel loved and important. I will miss you while we are apart but I know, in part because of your testimony, that the separation is not permanent.

I miss you.

Love Nathan

Life updates

This last year has been an interesting year to say the least. The engineering firm I work for was added to the collection of companies owned by the Fives Group, a French conglomerate. And for those of you wondering, it is NOT pronounced "5s" It is FEEvs. If that makes phonetic sense, cause it's, ya know, French. They (we) have been in business for over 200 years, so that's a pretty long time I guess. And it seems like they have business interests in just about every sector (automotive, aerospace, aluminum, cement, sugar, composites, heavy machinery, manufacturing... etc). Anyway, their network of suppliers has been a big boon to me personally, it has opened doors into the manufacturing world that I might never have seen, working with the limited resources of a smaller company. There are some pretty crazy parts that I am looking at trying to get built right now, and if it wasn't for the Fives manufacturing contacts, I would be struggling (even more than I am) with finding vendors who would be willing to take the work.  It has also been good, because part of our integration into the Fives family of companies means better name recognition, access to new markets, and the ability to sell our services in new and more competitive ways.  I am working on a project right now worth several million dollars that I am pretty sure we only got because of our association with Fives. So now we are no longer Lund Engineering, we have become Fives Lund LLC. Pretty exciting.
Another development: I was finally able to finish paying off my debt. Now the only debt I have is my house and property, and I plan on keeping it that way. No more watching interest rates, or making sure I am on time with my monthly payment or trying to figure out how to make the money stretch to cover the payments. We can finally start saving again, I have started putting away for retirement again (though I never should have stopped) and we can save for fun things that we actually want. It feels pretty good. My job at Lund has been really good for me.
Also, Rachel has been working there as well. She started in June of this last year, and has been working the front desk with another girl. It has been nice to wander up front and see her. And it has been nice to have her home more often, and not have to drive into downtown Seattle. She gets to put the kids on the bus in the mornings, and I get to come home and get them off the bus in the afternoon. That has been a real blessing. She also isn't stressed out all the time about work, because it is truly a job that we both can just leave at work.
Christmas this year was nice, all my family came to town at some point, even Danny and Makay were able to get away from their wildly successful online business (http://www.simpleaddiction.com) and spend some time with all of us. They don't get to do that very often, so it was good to see them. I don't make it down to Utah very often, and the times I have in recent years, have not given me the opportunity to stop by and say hi. We got to go to the Supermall this year with everyone and do our Christmas tradition of drawing a name from a hat, and buying a $10 gift within an hour. We have been doing this for years, and this is the first time that everyone has been all in one spot. Actually I think we were missing Ben. But he works at the hospital and doesn't get normal days off.
I'd like to talk about a few other things, but I don't know if I'm ready to start putting that down on paper.

Progress in the Back Yard

We decided it was about time to start in on the back yard again, although I think Rachel would have rather had me help more with the laundry... Anyway, today I decided to get started cutting down the trees that are in the way of our landscaping plan. These were all pine trees about 10"-15" in diameter. I had good luck with the first one, it came down exactly where I wanted it, right across the back property line.

The second one though was a little more trouble, the trunk came out of the ground and kind of curved up, like a J. And I needed it to fall opposite the direction it was leaning. So I went and got my rope and tied it up about 20' and then tied it to another tree in the direction I wanted it to fall, thinking that I would be able to pull it down. I knew I needed to be careful, because it was naturally growing towards the neighbors, and was only about 5 feet away from the property line. I got the wedge cut out at the base of the tree and then started the back cut on the other side. I got about 1 inch from the middle and then went to the tree where I had tied the guide rope and started to pull. I got it to wave and bend, but it wouldn't come down... Ammon and Noah were trying to pull too. They mostly bounced up and down on the rope. It wasn't enough though. I needed to back cut a little further. I went to sharpen the blade, and took about 10 minutes to get it to where I was ok with it again. Anyway, I think that was a mistake, because when I went to start in on the tree again, the sharp chain just cut right through and the tree started to go exactly where I DIDN'T want it to go, towards the neighbors house! I tossed the chainsaw away (and it died thankfully) and grabbed the trunk of the tree to try to direct it away from anything important on the neighbors property. I got lucky, because with the rope tied where it was and my little bit of weight on the base, the tree fell onto the fence, and landed on a fence post and then teeter-tottered. I was able to use my weight on the trunk to keep it from hitting the neighbors shed, or do any damage to anything on their property. LUCKY. My arms sure did take a beating though. Bruises, scrapes and a couple of deeper cuts where some branches got as I was hanging onto the trunk.

The next one couldn't have been any easier. It was a simple one, it grew perfectly straight, and there wasn't anything in the way of it coming down exactly where I wanted it. That one made me feel pretty good.

The last one I tackled today was the biggest one, about 15" diameter. This one was also a straight growing tree and should have been easy, except for where it was growing. It was at the very back of our property, right next to the fence and there were several larger trees with branches that were right in the way of where I was trying to get it to fall. I couldn't see how to get it to fall where I wanted, as the branches would have directed it towards the same fence I had trouble with earlier. I wasn't interested in playing chicken with that fence again. I went and got a ladder and decided to climb the tree and cut it in half, letting the top fall first, and then tackling the rest of the trunk. I was pretty sure that it was a great idea, I even used my rope to tie the handle of the chainsaw, with about four feet of "leash" and then tied the ladder to the tree, and myself to the ladder. I was getting ready to start up the chainsaw when wiser heads prevailed. My wife came out and said that she didn't think what I was doing looked very safe. I looked down, I was about 25' up, and thought, "What could possibly go wrong? EVERYTHING!" So I decided to listen to my wife. However, as I was up there, I glanced towards our house, and noticed that there was a much clearer path for the tree to fall than the direction that I was intending for it to go in the first place, one that would let me cut the tree from the base with no trouble. So I untied everything, then tied the rope by itself up above where I was to use as a pull. I climbed down and started cutting. It couldn't have come down any more perfectly. It ended up coming down about 5' short of the brand new deck we had just finished building. I didn't break any of the branches of the trees I wanted to keep, ruin anything else in the yard, or hurt myself in any way. It was so perfect that I decided to take a picture of it:

No Title

Things have been going pretty well for us lately at home. Rachel quit the bank (finally) and came to work part time with me at Lund Engineering. It's kind of a funny story, I was getting tired of her having bad, stressful days at the bank, and one day she asked me if she could come to work with me. I told her that I would see what I could do. I thought about it for a few days, and decided that having my wife work with me wouldn't be a bad thing, and that her stress level would definitely go down working where I work, so why not? I went in and spoke with the office manager (the owners wife) and asked if there was anything that my overqualified wife could do. She thought about it for a few minutes and started coming up with things Rachel could do, things that she could stop worrying about and trim her own hours down to a more reasonable 40 per week. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea, and this all happened in the space of about 5 minutes.
From there it was only a matter of checking with the other office staff to see what they thought, and confirming with the Boss that she could hire someone if she wanted. Rachel is sitting out there now, at the front desk right now! And she comes home happy, they offered her pretty good pay, and at three days a week, she has plenty of time to do the other "mom" things she wants to do.
Rachel also just finished up with her online schooling, completing a Bachelors Degree from BYU-Idaho online. That has been a nightmare for our household these last few years especially. Lots of time spent on the computer, not going out with friends, not having time to clean, to play with kids. I stepped in to help as best I could, but I'm not the Mom. I do ok at being a Dad, but I am definitely not a Mom. We are going to have a graduation party here in a few weeks, assuming all goes as planned.

As for me, I am still very happy with my job. I was given a a few months ago and that really helped the income situation stabilize in our home. Things are pretty slow now, and I am having to get creative in order to find enough to keep me occupied. I have spent time in the shop helping with assembly, I have spent time finding and meeting with new potential vendors, I have gone to visit existing vendors to reassure them that we will be busy again soon. I have been doing clerical work here and there, record keeping and such. But I find myself staring out my office window a lot lately. All this sunshine we have had here in the Pacific Northwest is pretty addicting. Not really good for the rhododendrons outside my window though...

One of Rachel's classes was how to start an online business. After looking at the possibilities suggested by the professor, she decided on a consignment type online business. We found out that it is WAY harder to do that previously thought. My hat is off to all those who are able to start, grow and maintain their own  successful online business. We gave it a good try, and still have hopes to be able to do something else in the future, but I think we would have to be way more passionate about the business model/product. You can see our effort at www.Rachae.com